ABSTRACT
Increased operating flexibility and profits result when refinery operations pro-duce basic intermediate streams that can be blended to produce a variety of onspecification finished products. For example, naphthas can be blended into either gasoline or jet fuel, depending upon the product demand. Aside from lubricating oils, the major refinery products produced by blending are gasolines, jet fuels, heating oils, and diesel fuels. The objective of product blending is to allocate the available blending components in such a way as to meet product demands and specifications at the least cost and to produce incremental products which max-imize overall profit. The volumes of products sold, even by a medium-sized re-finer, are so large that savings of a fraction of a cent per gallon will produce a substantial increase in profit over the period of one year. For example, if a refiner sells about one billion gallons of gasoline per year (about 65,000 BPCD; several refiners sell more than that in the United States), a saving of one onehundredth of a cent per gallon results in an additional profit of $100,000 per year.
